schmakt.com

tea parties

2009-04-15T14:47:00.003-04:00

Also...
You tea party mother fuckers are stupid.
MOST of your taxes should be lower now...
The original tea party had no problem with taxation. Only taxation w/o representation. You voted. You have representation. Or maybe you're just bitter that your party finally got the boot.
And you're hypocritical. Where were you when bush was spending the country into the ground? I guess you were too busy telling us that Iraq was going "swimmingly" and that it wasn't about the oil.

I've read dozens of webpages about what these things are supposed to mean and what you're trying to accomplish, and they all stink of bitter beans. You don't even know what you're doing. You're just mad that you had an 8 year run and chose the dumbest mother fucker in the world to lead it and now you've got to let the other side try something for a change.

It wouldn't suck so much had you also been out in force when the cowboy-in-chief was spending all of our money, but you weren't. Somehow it's ok to blow our wad on starting a war so trigger-happy-george could get his rocks off, but you have a problem with spending money in an effort to solve our domestic problems? Fuck you.
Sore. Losers.

...Our Velocity!

2009-04-15T13:25:00.003-04:00

"I've tried too long to grow again into the world and now I'm being sent back. I don't want to remove myself again. I spent so long away and finally rejoined the world and now I can't be here. It's too much to walk around with this skin and this blood - it all hisses at me. I sink into my blood and it hisses at me."

Brilliant, really. Who thinks they have the right to paint such vivid pictures of human emotions with nothing but the swirl of a little black ink on an off-white page? The interior monologues so often take things you've pictured in your mind before but never had the words to describe... even to yourself... It's pretty amazing. Some criticisms were saying that Eggers can't write about anything but his own life in any way that engages the reader.

To say the least, I find that hard to understand.

my suicide note

2009-04-09T23:57:00.002-04:00

curiously...

it's not your fault

EDIT: I should say, perhaps, that this is purely hypothetical.

The music is my life. Everybody dance now. (x3)

2009-03-13T08:54:00.002-04:00

From September 2007 to March 2009.
Finance Charges Paid = $203.75
The sad thing is that I don't even have the data from when I bought my guitar on this card. Although, come to think of it... I think I paid that off before the finance charges accrued. Yeah. That's what I'm going with.

There's really nothing else to say except that now that I have a bunch of instruments, I'm here to combine beats and lyrics to make you shake your pants. Take a chance, come on and dance. Guys grab a girl; don't wait, make the twirl. It's your world and I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut to move your butt to the dance floor.

*sigh* Poetry...

suffer for fashion.

2009-03-13T08:43:00.002-04:00

From November 2007 to February 2009.
Finance Charges Paid = $21.51
I'm not even pretending this one is going to remain at zero. For all your 1994 fashion needs, shop Kohl's.

Now that I've revealed my secret to everyone, perhaps I should go buy this stock instead.

Not that I'm worried.
It's not what you wear, it's how you wear it.

And no one poses like me.

drive away, Drive Card

2009-03-13T08:31:00.002-04:00

From June 2008 to February 2009.
Finance Charges Paid = $61.44
at least this was because my car was completely broken.

just think tho... Instead of giving Citi my $61.44, I could have purchased 61.44 shares of stock. And, as of today, I would have made $41. Hilarious, kind of.

uhm... I blame george bush.
for...
something.

Ah!
For making Kelly Clarkson get fatter, which caused America to stop spending, which caused Citi to crash, which is going to make the Saudis mad, which will jack the oil prices, which will... shit. That just leads back to Kelly getting fatter.
DAMN YOU george bush!

but Brotha' Fred likes the bootyliciousness, so maybe I'm on the wrong side of this thing...

Suck it, Providian

2009-03-06T12:47:00.003-05:00

From March 2002 to March 2009.
Finance Charges Paid = $4,586.03
Fuck you, Providian.
*chop chop* and good riddance.

(and thank you, First Time Home Buyer's Credit)

Michael Phelps should smoke MORE pot.

2009-02-13T11:01:00.001-05:00

And I will eat fewer Kellogg's products.

letters

2009-01-27T19:10:00.002-05:00

I'm having trouble putting together the login script and the forum on Dustin's webpage, and I was trying to read some forum posts to see if I could find some help. I guess that, due to something I was reading, I made a sad face b/c the bartender was concerned. As much as a bartender could be concerned.

I wasn't really sad, but I got to thinking how things I have read on the computer screen have definitely made me sad in the past. And then about how strange that is. Someone somewhere pressed certain buttons in a particular order that caused all these little electrical pulses which caused certain letters to appear on the page, which were turned back into little electrical pulses that were sent to my computer and then reimagined as those same letters in that same particular order.

I'm definitely applying ideas of randomness to acts of intent...
And I'm anthropomorphizing they keys on the keyboard
Thinking that somehow all of those interactions and conversions surely didn't happen perfectly. Something must have gotten lost.

Or, perhaps more to the point, how easy would it have been to simply push four more of those buttons... "n-o-t-[space]" Or whatever it might have been. I have nothing particular in mind. It's not the first time I've thought something similar and now I'm sitting in the bar waiting on some stuff to upload so, I dunno... I figured I'd write it out.

The act of pushing (or not pushing) those particular buttons in that particular order is so easy. Changing it would be so easy. And couldn't you... you know... just not push those buttons? The act is so easy, and the results of the actions of pushing buttons can be so... hmmmm... far reaching? E-Mail isn't really fair. People should be forced to use a pencil and a piece of paper for anything more significant than, "which bar will you be visiting this evening?"

Excuse me... bartender? Another Guinness, please.

David Byrne

2008-12-16T15:58:00.006-05:00

So it's been a while... again. Yet I will be brief. Because I have too much to do. But last Wednesday, Brian convinced me that we should go see David Byrne at Oven's Auditorium. (It didn't take much convincing) We were decently close enough but way the hell off to the side, which sucked. Especially since the guy selling the tickets sold them as "DEAD CENTER." And more especially b/c it made it hard as hell for the camera to pick up anything on stage w/o being blinded by the reflected light. But whatever. Shit happens. And it was still an awesome awesome show, regardless.
I don't think I ever got around to posting, but I went to see Of Montreal in Asheville a few weeks ago. It was... fine. Although the production was awesome in that it obviously took a lot of work and a lot of skill to pull off, I found it distracting. From the music. Which is the reason I went to the show. Way too much going on on stage, and the music suffered. It wasn't culturally shocking or anything either. Just a bunch of clever look-at-me-I'm-artsy kind of stuff. The point is that there were dancers at this show too, but I thought it was pulled off in a much much better way. Everything that the dancers did on stage added to the song, and I didn't find it distracting at all. Even though I found myself not focusing on the song sometimes, my focus on the dancers increased my enjoyment of the song since it became something that I felt more than something that I heard. It was a really great fusion of aural and visual stimulation.

As for the music... The only reason I didn't jump on this is b/c I'm rarely a fan of any complete Talking Heads record. Although I liked Byrne's Uh-Oh for its clever goofiness, I never really got into his solo career either. Before we went, I checked out the new record (with Brian Eno). As with most TH records, there were a few songs I dug, and the rest was completely mediocre. I'm sure the structure of the songs was fantastic and the vocal something or other was brilliant, but I don't really care. I just want to listen to something that, when I listen to it, I think, "I like this." To hell with thinking too hard. None of the songs that I liked off the new record got played, but almost (if not fully) half of the set were Talking Heads staples. Being the casual and uneducated fan that I am, that was awesome. His voice is still spot-on, and the musicians he assembled were absolutely phenomenal. For the most part, the crowd was pretty great too. Even tho it was in Oven's (a fully seated theater), I got to stand up the whole time. I hate sitting at good shows. Much to the chagrin of the people behind me. But fuck them. Lots of people were standing up including most of the people in front of me. Everyone stood up during a few songs, and I was happy to hear the everyone go really nuts at, you know, the appropriate times. Maybe Charlotte isn't so bad after all... We ran into Don and Lori too. Talked to Don and saw Lori, but I don't think she ever saw us. I kind of expected to run into more people there that I knew, but we didn't. Then again, we got there not long before the show started... downed four beers in the car and then went straight to our seats. That worked.

dustinedge.com

2008-11-12T19:58:00.001-05:00

We redid a bunch of stuff on dustinedge.com...
And shows are coming...
Check It Out

Proof stuff...

2008-10-22T10:00:00.002-04:00

Several months ago I heard about this relatively new comic called Proof. The whole word-of-mouth thing worked, cuz I picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I got the artist on the book, Riley Rossmo, to do a commission for me with the characters in a club band. I also picked up the original pencils to a pinup that I thought was particularly rad from issue 11 and sent copies of a few issues up to get signed. He sent me everything back and included an extra piece of art that's just pretty whacky, but also really cool... and I really want to color it in. I might... Maybe I'll do it in photoshop tho.

So I got all of that stuff and it was rad... and then the writer, Alex Grecian, offered a this sketchbook for sale that was created for CCI and not offered anywhere else. So I took him up on it and also sent the comics that Riley signed to Alex to sign as well. Just recently got that stuff back along with 3 mini-comics that Alex did (mostly) on his own. And below is all the crazy Proof stuff I've picked up recently.

"Snowfall," btw, is my favorite of the mini-comics I think. There's something about things that can make you remember what it was like to feel things as a child that are just impossible to feel now. There's a feeling of remorse at the loss of innocence and naivety, and then it's just kind of confusing b/c why would you want to be able to have feelings like that. But, really, it's the loss of wonder about the world around you that is sad. This comic is like 16 pages and it captures much of that very well.

Proof 11...

Alex Grecian mini-comics...

Proof Sketchbook...

And finally... Riley's artwork!

I <3 Jeff's Bucket Shop

2008-09-07T18:30:00.002-04:00

What's with freaking Charlotte?
Am I really the only person in this town who wants to go watch the men's semi-finals of the US Open at a bar? Even though the Panthers are playing?

Fine... home team or whatever. Season opener... but there are plenty of football games still to come. Plus the Panthers suck. So do the Chargers. I was told by four bars that they could not switch any of their TV's to the US Open b/c the Panthers game was on. Lame.

My last ditch effort was the Bucket even tho I was pretty sure it was closed. (CBS is the only network that doesn't come in well with my antenna) It was open, and there were only like 5 people there... all watching the Panthers on the projector and all of the TV's. But Ken let me switch the little TV in the corner, so I got to go sit in the dark corner of the Bucket Shop and watch tennis alone and none of the football people were annoying at all. Sweet.

Nadal lost, which I did not want. But Murray played amazing tennis; hopefully the final tomorrow will be just as fantastic. (Federer!!)

NYE 2006

2008-09-07T15:16:00.002-04:00

Bryan sent me a ton of pictures that he took from our New Year's Eve party back in 2006... You can make up your own captions... Thomas is, quite obviously, the star...

Sliding Rock

2008-09-07T02:34:00.004-04:00

Bear Den is Swinging

2008-09-07T01:55:00.002-04:00

Back in May Austin and Miho stopped in during a trip down for Aaron Dunham's wedding. Austin wanted to go hang out in the mountains and invited us to come along for a day. It was cold and rainy, but it ended up being a lot of fun. And also the location for one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. We spend most of the time at Sliding Rock, which was not technically open yet. (Oh. And it was cold.) I guess there had been some big storms or something... So this big freakin' tree that we were standing right next to just cracked right in half while we were standing there. It chopped another tree in half and fell square across the rock. Had we arrived 5 minutes earlier, we probably would have been sliding on the rock and squished. 5 minutes later, and we would have missed watching this tree plunge to its death on the smooth rocky surface below. Obviously I was too fat and old and slow to actually get that on camera, but here are some photos of the trip anyway.
I've never figured out why it is cool to take pictures of people while they are driving. This is what happened tho.

Usually, from this angle, you should be able to see the rock. Instead, you see the newly fallen tree...	You can see it better here...	This is just the pool that you fall into at the end. Way behind Austin, Allison and Miho are walking in the water.

See? There they are... Crazies. Did I mention it was cold?	Austin got bold and sucked the gut in...	And eventually everyone got wet. Which is not a sexual reference to Austin's gut. As far as I know.

Never seen an albino squirrel before...	Miho (I think) took the pictures of this waterfall on the way back out of the park.	Not only did no one get hurt... But everybody actually looks pretty happy. Even with me in the picture!
I think I mentioned that it was cold... we all tried it anyway...

Or at least it was over a year ago. I think the first photo is one of the coolest of Allison... she likes the second one. The second one reminds me of Deana Carter...

Weird poses. Odd. She never does that...................		Sideways is the best way.

The poor kid to whom this swing belonged will never swing in it again. :(	And whatever strange super-power that Allison has to make weird faces that make people next to her out of focus...	...Brooke was not amused...

Kam's Wedding... sort of...

2008-09-07T01:36:00.003-04:00

Again... just old pictures that I'm organizing and what not... Kam got married like 5 months ago. The night before, he tried to make a move on Tyler. It didn't work tho, so he got married and I went to the wedding and reception with Tyler and his girlfriend, Alyssa.

Young and Foolish Then...

2008-09-05T14:38:00.004-04:00

Old and Foolish Now...

trying to clean up my life means trying to clean up all of my digital media. In doing so, I ran across these few pictures that I'd forgotten about... I think they're so shitty b/c they are screen-caps. But they are now where they are supposed to be and, if pictures are where they are supposed to be, they also require a blog entry. So. Here's this. And then some God-awful thing we did... the kind of thing you should do in middle school or, maybe, high school. Probably not what you are supposed to do as a college graduate. *sigh*

Summit Coffee - 15 January 2005
Full Video (80 MB - WMV)
Cover Art
01	Intro
02	Dirty Blvd.
03	Lullaby
04	Bliss
05	Guilt
06	Talking
07	Buffet Gruel

the alphabet and iTunes

2008-08-26T11:38:00.003-04:00

I was listening to The National's show from a couple of days ago in Copenhagen in my iTunes. It ends with "About Today," which is a pretty slow song. Performed well. Nice clapping. Good end to the show.

After The National, my iTunes goes like this:

Nelly - Country Grammar
Nelly - Ride Wit Me
Nelly - E.I.
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
New Order - Regret
Nice & Smooth - Sometimes I Rhyme Quick
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Nikki French - Total Eclipse of the Heart

And then, like, a million NIN songs.

And yes, I have that many songs by Nelly.
He owns the Bobcats, kind of!

Jew(s) and Catholic(s), The Airborne Toxic Event, Dustin Edge, Toadies...

2008-08-22T10:30:00.012-04:00

You know that song, "Time in a Bottle?"

Well I want to smash that girl in the face every time that commercial comes on when she says that. Other than that, I would totally buy some time. Couldn't care less if it comes in a bottle.

So, anyway, here's a bunch of music crap mashed all into one post b/c I'm too lazy to actually keep up with anything anymore.

First, I suppose, is this album. It's been a long long time since I've actually purchased a new CD from a store. I went to Best Buy the other day for some blanks to burn off the zillions of (mostly Radiohead) bootlegs I've been getting lately and decided I'd take the long shot and see if they had TATE's new (and only) record. Much much to my surprise, nestled b/t Air Supply and Akon was a lone copy of "The Airborne Toxic Event." There was no price on it, and I was fully prepared to pay $15+ for it. $11.99? Yes, please.

Despite paying less than I would have, it was actually still a pretty annoying purchase given that I'd been purchasing their singles off of iTunes as they came out. And since the first 3 came out as an "EP," you'd think that they'd not include those songs on the "album." But they did and so I had 40% of the record already. Sadly, those songs are the best songs, but the rest of the record is still pretty damn good to me. There's some Franz Ferdinand sound in there every now and then, ("This Is Nowhere") and there was one song I just didn't really care for at all. ("Something New")

The lyrics throughout are, however, fantastic. It's strange to open the booklet and see just how much ink is spilled across the page. And it's not wasted words. Words that make me happy and words that make me sad. But very few words that make me feel nothing.

And I guess it turns out I actually have very little to say about this. But I like it. Not like I liked them when it was just the four songs out, but I like it. And I'm afraid I'm going to regret this later with all of the MTV talk for Sometime Around Midnight. But for now, I'm happy with this record, and I think it's worth a listen. Or at least worth watching the videos for free on youtube...

When it rains it pours, I guess. After staying out of music stores for a long time, I ended up with 2 new records in a week. Which may or may not have anything to do with having a new job that pays much better than the old one. Regardless, the Toadies actually finally released a new album after... what, like 10 years? I followed Vaden over to the Burden Brothers, but wasn't overly impressed. But No Deliverance (Click to listen for free) is classic Toadies. Even with the lineup change.

It's under 40 minutes long, so I was a bit miffed at paying as much as I did, (pre-order from Newbury Comics) but I did get it on the release date... and I did get an extra CD booklet thing signed by the band. Which is kind of neat since I geek out about crap like that. There's nothing really groundbreaking here that I can tell. And if you didn't like Toadies before, I can't imagine you'll like this. But I did and I do. And it's cool that they're touring again. Maybe they'll even come to Charlotte!

(that was a joke)

The first time I saw Jew(s) and Catholic(s) was at Snug Harbor as they opened for Silent Weapons. I thought they were freaking amazing. The next time I saw them was right after the Inside EP was released at SKNet again with Silent Weapons. They were great, but it's really too bad that it was at SKNet. b/c that place sucks for shows.

This time was at The Milestone, and The Milestone kicks much ass.

So. When I'm left to my own devices I'm rather punctual. Doors at 8:00, show at 9:30-ish. I'm there at 7:45. The bands aren't even there yet. LOSER. But I wanted to film it, and I knew where I wanted to stand. So... whatever. I was definitely the only person there when I went in. Sat at the bar for a minute where Neil (the soundguy) said he'd get me a drink. Double tall Captain and Sprite, please. He pulls out these enormous "shot" glasses. Fills one up and into my cup... fills it up again and there's maybe an inch left for some Sprite. (turns out that the shot glasses were 3 ounces each) So I get my spray of Sprite, hand over SEVEN DOLLARS, (wow! :)) and go sit around and wait.

Eventually people started coming in and I saw Eddie and Alanna and caught Eddie long enough to make sure it was cool if I recorded. So for everything that happened from this point on, I blame myself. He was cool about it, so I got my stuff setup and then saw him frantically running around with the drum machine... the AC adapter was fucked. I guess he had a spare, which was good, but that was a rather foreboding sign.

The first band that played (The Have and Have Nots) were... fine. Energetic and pretty interesting. But I was tired of it after 2 songs. So, you know, I was pretty happy when Jew(s) and Catholic(s) were second. Everything started off well enough but quickly went downhill as my evil camera eye cursed every guitar that Eddie picked up. Alanna sounded great, and she was right there on time the whole time. But those damn guitars... I guess you can just watch and see if you want to. It was frustrating (and I'm sure FAR more frustrating to them), but I still liked what I heard and it was a fun and entertaining show for certain. Obviously "New Song" is not the name of #5... Hopefully they'll myspace me back with the proper title, and I can fix that.

And I need a new camera. I don't know why mine makes movies that are so grainy. I'm pretty sure it used to not do that. I played with the settings a LOT before the show, but I couldn't figure it out. I almost bought a new camera, but Allison needed a camera too, and her birthday was on Tuesday, so I got her one instead. Pretty sure I'm still happier about that. But it doesn't make me less annoyed with the shitty quality of my videos.
And I don't feel bad about the quality of the snapshots... I was, after all, videotaping at the same time..............

Jew(s) and Catholic(s) - 16 August 2008 The Milestone Club - Charlotte, NC CD Cover

01	Mirrors
02	Bandits
03	Shit Goes South
04	Casino Lights
05	New Song
06	Make yr' Mark

The band to play after Jew(s) and Catholic(s) was Red Collar out of Durham. Never heard of them before, and I was a little worried when I saw one of the guys with cowboy boots and spurs. But they were actually a lot of fun. Having a girl bass player also never hurts anything. They reminded me of a slightly softer version of Throw Rag. I bought their EP, which is good... but, as with most bands, nowhere near the live show. I wouldn't necessarily make a special trip out to see them again, but I'd be happy to hear if they were going to be playing with some other band that I already knew I liked. They might be able to win me over just due to the awesome energy on stage.
They are going to be at Snug Harbor on Oct. 3, sooo... We shall see, perhaps.

The song I recorded is called "Fade Into the Night" (thank you, Jonathan!) It was totally random that I ended up getting this particular song on film, but I was listening to the EP on the way home, and this is definitely better than a lot of the record. Except for, of course, the shitty sound quality...

I also got to see The Lights, Fluorescent for the 2nd time. I'd heard their name around town, but I only ended up seeing them because they played the "Celebrate Women in Music Awards" or something like that. Very poorly run award show that happened at The Milestone a few months ago. I was only there, again, b/c of Silent Weapons. And there were some crappy bands there, for sure. But I really liked this one. So when I saw that they were playing with Jew(s) and Catholic(s), I was pretty damn happy. I'm not plugged in enough to get to go to too many local shows where I actually am familiar with more than one band. So that was nice.

They played last and played well. I'm assuming that most people were there for this band as opposed to the others... or everyone was drunk. But definitely everyone was bouncier when they started. And the band absolutely fed off of it too. They played for about an hour, which was nice. But after the set, I got in a "Two More Songs!" scream, and then everyone said it, and the band happily obliged. I reckon I'll be heading out to The Milestone to see them again in a few weeks. Good times.

Oh yeah... I bought their CD the last time I saw them... shortly thereafter I got a new CD player for my car, but I left my copy of their disc in the old CD player. So it's still in there. Which sucks. But thank goodness for iTunes.

The first song below is, *I think*, called "Cubicle"
The second one is "So Sweet (Without a Care)"

And, lastly, Dustin Edge swung back through town a month ago and played a solo acoustic show up at Summit Coffee. I've had these mp3's up for a while, so I imagine that, if you want them, you already got them... but it deserved to be on the front page too. I really had no idea what to expect at all. I knew Cast Iron Filter, and I'd listened to Forest Through the Trees more than most people in the world. But it was beyond me to even hazard a guess as to what this stuff would sound like alone and with nothing but a guitar and a harmonica. Certainly most of the songs bore little resemblance to the multi-layered Forest Through the Trees... at least to an untrained ear such as mine. But it game them all a new life, and it made it doubly fun to hear all the songs stripped back down like that. The handful of CIF songs that were played were definitely recognizable, but definitely also quite different. Harlan County was excellent.
oh! And I guess this makes me way out of order, but I can't believe Hot Hot Hot was the opener. One of my favorite Cure songs, and one that I was stoked to get to see at the Cure show a couple of months ago. I guess there were a rather large number of covers, come to think of it. I don't really know anything about "folk" music, so "Long Black Veil" wasn't any sort of touchstone or anything, but it was awesome. "Too Late To Die Young" was not, I believe, in the plan of things to be played... nor was the Untitled song. (Hurray for Encores!) Both of them worked well, and I hope the Untitled one continues to find its life. Bryan took about 9 million pictures... the light is bad out there, so he used the extended shutter thing. Which, I think, made a lot of these come out looking really really cool. Here are a few more... And I'm jealous of all you people in New York. Can't wait to see where all this stuff goes when/if Dustin actually starts getting a band together.
I know what I'm gonna do, by God.
Oh no, Dustin, don't...
I'm callin' 'em up.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Loyal fan base...

This is what The Flash would look like if you took a picture of him playing guitar.

Listen as I pontificate as to why this is good...

Even the moon was rocking out...

But, eventually, it's goodnight, Moon.

Dustin Edge - 12 July 2008 Summit Coffee - Davidson, NC CD Cover
01	Hot Hot Hot (the Cure)
02	Yay Rick Spreitzer (talking...)
03	Apartment (tentatively titled...)
04	Mooncursers
05	Hawkeye John
06	The Flat Baritone (The Gourds)
07	Redemption
08	Harlan County, USA
09	Psychoacoustic
10	No One Will
11	Lieutenant Spins
12	Stupid Preoccupations (Vic Chestnut)
13	Buy My Stuff (capitalist propaganda talking)
14	Video Motion
15	Luminosity
16	Intermezzo
17	An Alien Communique
18	The Ideal Citizen
19	Looking for a UFO (Adrian Belew)
20	Men Who Die Young
21	Long Black Veil (traditional)
22	Too Late To Die Young (Dan Bern)
23	Untitled

And lastly lastly, Dustin came back through town again and stooped down to come do open mic night at Jeff's Bucket Shop. I have no photos b/c I just sat my camera over near the stage and let it record the audio. So the sound quality on this is a town worse than the other one, but I actually thought the performance was better. But that may not mean anything other than that I had more to drink. Or maybe that Dustin had more to drink.

The phrasing on "Aeroplane Over the Sea..." good lord. Awesome.

Except for the bookend covers, these songs were all played at Summit. "No One Will" is a very cool song, I think.

Oh. After this was over, I bought a couple of carbombs. Dustin tried to cheat. But he lost anyway. Slut.

Dustin Edge - 05 August 2008 Jeff's Bucket Shop - Charlotte, NC
01	Needle in the Camel's Eye (Brian Eno)
02	Apartment
03	Mooncursers
04	Luminosity
05	Intermezzo
06	An Alien Communique
07	The Ideal Citizen
08	No One Will
09	Men Who Die Young
10	Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

Broken mirrors. Wednesday morning.

2008-08-20T14:21:00.003-04:00

cause everyday for all I care. Allison almost found God as the bathroom mirror came crashing off the wall for no apparent reason a narrowly missed conking her on the head...

It broke the light switch while falling...	Left a nice big hole in the wall...	And shattered on the floor... Pay no attention to the gross toilet. It's clean(-ish) in all the parts you can normally see, I swear.

birds

2008-08-06T10:23:00.004-04:00

The other day this hawk or falcon or whatever dive-bombed this other falcon off one of the trees next to my house. I went over to take a picture of it after they stopped fighting... Right after I snapped this, the camera died, and the bird got very very mad at me. He screeched and watched me like a... you know... as I walked back to the door. Then he continued to stand there yelling at stuff for a while. A couple of stupid squirrels tried to run up and screw with him, but he quickly put an end to that. Then he just kind of got bored and flew away... A while back this owl was hanging out in my front yard and on top of the neighbor's truck. I haven't seen him in a while, but it's probably just too fucking hot... I took these back in December. When it was probably only like 80 outside.

big bands in Charlotte!!

2008-07-25T10:04:00.003-04:00

I was watching the news this morning before I left for work, and Tera said something about "the concert tonight." I didn't know what she was talking about, so I checked out Verizon to see what was coming up. Almost every one of my favorite bands is coming through!

Widespread Panic (Climb to Safety is the best song released in the last 8 years.)
Widespread Panic (that's right. Twice.)
Maroon 5 w/ The Counting Crows (oh, Adam, you are so full of heartbreak; I just want to squeeze you.)
Jonas Brothers w/ Avril Lavigne (Is this show going to be full of soccer moms and their kids? yum.)
Linkin Park (DJ's + guitars... why didn't someone else think of this earlier??)
Journey (That little Philippino guy is just so... so Steve.)
Rascal Flatts (Actually... I can't even think of anything mildly clever. This band just fucking sucks.)
Stone Temple Pilots (parking lot? drugs? Scott, you'd better still be crazy... Velvet Revolver was terrible.)
John Mayer (what's not to love? I think his head's as big as his ex-girlfriend's boobs and TMZ loves him!)
Kenny Chesney (Admittedly, I don't know anything about him, but you have GOT to be cool if you're a dude and both of your names end in "y.")
Brooks and Dunn (My booty hasn't been scooted in far too long. C'mon, Kicks, let's see how it's done! ahhh... what would high school have been like w/o these guys? Terrible, I tell you. Terrible.)
3 Doors Down (poor Jimmy Olsen. This is the band the Spin Doctors only wished they could be.)
Martina McBride (ok... so, again... I have no idea what this person does. But you just know she's hot. Southern-country hot. Like Dolly Parton.)

And in real news, I got tickets to see Of Montreal in October.
No, they're not coming to Charlotte. Don't be silly.

hm... right.

2008-07-18T14:44:00.004-04:00

And as I was thinking about that b/c of a song Dustin played for me...
I Don't Want to Get Over You
The Magnetic Fields

I don't want to get over you.
I guess I could take a sleeping pill and sleep at will and not have to go through what I go through.
I guess I should take Prozac, right, and just smile all night at somebody new.
Somebody not too bright but sweet and kind who would try to get you off my mind.
I could leave this agony behind
which is just what I'd do if I wanted to
But I don't want to get over you

Cause I don't want to get over love.
I could listen to my therapist, pretend you don't exist and not have to dream of what I dream of;
I could listen to all my friends and go out again and pretend it's enough,
Or I could make a career of being blue--I could dress in black and read Camus,
Smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
Like I was 17 that would be a scream
But I don't want to get over you.

As an aside... I love Camus.

evocation

2008-07-18T10:09:00.002-04:00

The words are good at evoking things, I think.
Sometime Around Midnight
The Airborne Toxic Event

And it starts...
Sometime around midnight.
Or at least that's when you lose yourself for a minute or two.
As you stand...
Under the bar lights.
And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while.
And the piano's this melancholy soundcheck to her smile.
And that white dress she's wearing, you haven't seen her for a while

But you know...
That she's watching.
She's laughing she's turning she's holding her tonic like a crux.
The room suddenly spinning she walks up and asks how you are.
So you can smell her perfume you can see her lying naked in your arms.

And so there's a change...
In your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind.
Of the curl of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless and lost in the haze of the wine.

Then she leaves...
With someone you don't know.
But she makes sure you saw her she looks right at you and bolts.
As she walks out the door your blood boiling your stomach in ropes.
And when your friends say what is it you look like you've seen a ghost.

Then you walk...
Under the street lights.
And you're too drunk to notice that everyone is staring at you.
You just don't care what you look like the world is falling around you.

You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.

You know that she'll break you in two.